Archive for the ‘UN World Conference on Indigenous Peoples 2014 / Reunión Plenaria de Alto Nivel de la Asamblea General de Naciones Unidas /’ Category

On Wednesday January 11, 2017 at 11:00 PM, Arthur Manuel, our beloved father, grandfather, husband, brother, uncle, warrior, and teacher passed away. Arthur was one of our most determined and outspoken Secwepemc leaders and activists—a pillar in the resistance, known globally for his tireless advocacy for Indigenous Peoples’ right to self-determination. He passed on into the spirit world surrounded by many generations of his loving family.

Arthur was the son of Marceline Paul of the Ktuanaxa Nation and George Manuel of the Secwepemc Nation. George was a political leader and visionary who served as president of the National Indian Brotherhood and the World Council of Indigenous Peoples.

Arthur was born into the struggle and groomed to be a leader and defender of Indigenous rights and title. Coming up as a young leader in the 1970s, he served as president of the National Native Youth Association, leading the occupation of Indian Affairs. He attended Concordia University (Montreal, Quebec) and Osgoode Hall Law School (Toronto, Ontario).

He returned to his community and was elected Chief of Neskonlith Indian Band, Chair of the Shuswap Nation Tribal Council, and Chair of the Assembly of First Nations Delgamuukw Implementation Strategic Committee. He was a long-time co-chair of the North American Indigenous Peoples Caucus of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues and former co-chair of the Global caucus. He was active in the Defenders of the Land and Idle No More movement and as a board member of the Seventh Generation Fund for Indigenous Peoples. He was one of the main strategic thinkers of the decolonization movement in Canada. As the spokesman for the Indigenous Network on Economies and Trade, he convinced the World Trade Organization to recognize that Indigenous peoples are subsidizing the BC lumber industry through the non-recognition of Aboriginal title. He was co-author, along with Grand Chief Ronald Derrickson, of the award-winning Unsettling Canada: A National Wake-Up Call, with a foreword by his friend and fellow activist Naomi Klein.

He worked selflessly in defence of Indigenous territorial authority and he fiercely opposed any termination of Indigenous land rights. He rejected provincial and federal authority over unceded Indigenous land, and challenged the extinguishment of Indigenous title through the BC treaty process. He fought climate change, battling the imminent threat of pipelines across Secwepemc territory.

He was a world traveller who connected Indigenous nations across the globe to unite in a common vision and defend their rights. He was gifted a button blanket by the Nuxalk nation and has received countless honours for his work around the world.

Arthur was also a teacher and a mentor to many. He was a source of knowledge for youth and young leaders. Through his fierce love for his people, he shone a light on the path to justice for a new generation of activists.

Arthur is survived by his life partner, Nicole Schabus, by his sisters Emaline, Martha, Doreen, and Ida, his brothers George, Richard, and Ara, and by his children, Kanahus, Mayuk, Ska7cis and Snutetkwe. He is predeceased by his parents, sister Vera, brother Bobby, beloved son Neskie and his grandchildren Napika Amak and Megenetkwe.

In his most recent article on Canada’s 150th celebration, published only a week before his death, Arthur insisted again that Canada was built entirely on the theft of Indigenous lands.

“Our Indian reserves are only .02% of Canada’s land and yet Indigenous peoples are expected to survive on them. This has led to the systematic impoverishment of Indigenous people and the crippling oppression that indigenous peoples suffer under the current colonial system.

The .02 land based is used to keep us too poor and too weak to fight back. It is used to bribe and co-opt the Indigenous leadership into becoming neocolonial partners to treat the symptom of poverty on Indian reserves without addressing the root cause of the problem, which is the dispossession of all of the Indigenous territory by Canada and the provinces.” – First Nations Strategic Bulletin, August-December 2016 Issue

Media contact: Russell Diabo at 613-296-0110 or rdiabo@rogers.com
Donations to support Arthur’s service can be sent to jacksoncrick7@yahoo.ca
Condolences to the family and photos of Arthur can be sent to erfeltes@gmail.com

United Nations Video of the Informal Consultations conducted by Mr. John Ashe, President of the General Assembly on the Outcome Document of the General Assembly High Level Plenary Meeting of September 2014 on June 3, 2014 at UN Headquarters NY.*********************************

We call for the restitution of the primary source materials and testimony that was lent to the United Nations system as fundamental to the evidence in document form of thesystemic (system to system) nature of the legal relationships between the Nations of Indigenous Peoples and the member states of the UN system for the purpose of the Treaty Study conducted by Dr. Miguel Alfonso Martinez of Cuba.

Such delivery, should be an initial act of good faith in terms of the continuing process of systemic documentation among the Nations of Indigenous Peoples and the UN system prior to and as a necessary act of condition to allow for the full and effective participation of the Indigenous Peoples with the High Level Plenary Meeting on an equal basis and withoutsystemic discrimination in the process of producing the Final Outcome Document of the High Level Plenary Meeting of the General Assembly 2014.

It is a schema of the states which is actively and openly but unrealistically being promoted to be named a CONFERENCE, in the same degrading naming process that we became known as INDIANS, AMERICA, AMERICAN INDIANS, LATIN AMERICA, etc.The HLPM is a semiotic schema (doctrine) being constructed to contextualize the process INDIGENOUS CONSENT inside the Westphalian System of the Divine Right of States in order to domesticate the Universal Human Right in International Law of Indigenous Peoples, equal to all other peoples of the world.

We are Nations of Mother Earth, and will not consent to be diminished or to be dominated under the regime of the government states of the UN system as mere ethnic groups, or minorities.

THIRTEENTH SESSION OF THE UNITED NATIONS PERMANENT FORUM ON INDIGENOUS ISSUES
May 12 To 23, 2014
UN Headquarters, New York

STATEMENT OF THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIGENOUS PEOPLES’ CAUCUS

Agenda Item 6: UN High Level Plenary Meeting that is not a World Conference on Indigenous Peoples

Thank you Madame Chair. As co-chair, I am honored to give this statement on behalf of the North American Indigenous Peoples’ Caucus. The North American Indigenous Peoples Caucus (NAIPC) met on March 1st and 2nd, 2014 at Thompson Rivers University, in the traditional territory of the Secwepemcúľcw Nation. The meeting was hosted by the Shuswap Nation Tribal Council and Neskonlith Indian Band. The NAIPC meeting was attended by over 90 representatives from 41 Indigenous Peoples’ Nations and organizations.

AGENDA ITEM 6: Discussion on the High Level Plenary (HLP) To Be Known As the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples (WCIP)

32. NAIPC will engage other regions and caucuses to move toward a global consensus on the cancellation of the HLP also known as the WCIP. The following text is the consensus position reached by the NAIPC calling for the cancellation of the High Level Plenary Meeting (HLPM) to be known as the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples (WCIP):

In March of 2013, at the NAIPC meeting at Sycuan, we established, through consensus, standards of analysis and review regarding the proposed UN high-level plenary meeting (HLPM), also known as the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples (WCIP). These standards were applied by the North American delegation at the meeting in Alta, Norway in June of 2013. The bedrock of the NAIPC position regarding Indigenous Peoples participation in the HLPM is that participation must be FULL and EQUAL. We decided last March that we would revisit the question of the HLPM at the 2014 NAIPC meeting, and decide upon any further participation in planning or participating in the HLPM.

In the months following the Alta meeting and in particular on February 26, 2013, the President of the General Assembly (PGA), has made it clear in an Aide Memoir that equal and effective participation by Indigenous Peoples WILL NOT be allowed at the HLPM. Therefore, the NAIPC conditions that were established at Sycuan, and that were reiterated at Alta, have not been respected and have been ignored by the PGA. Given this chain of events, and given the short timeline between now and the scheduled HLPM, we do not foresee our conditions for participation as equals in the HLPM being met.

Therefore, the NAIPC calls for the immediate cancellation of the HLPM by the UN General Assembly. We also call on the state of Mexico to cancel its planned technical meeting to begin drafting the outcome document for the HLPM-WCIP; we call on the UNPFII to cancel any further participation and additional preparatory or advisory meetings for the HLPM. Additionally, NAIPC advances the position throughout Great Turtle Island, and to the world’s Indigenous Peoples, to call for the cancellation of the HLPM, and to withhold any and all support and participation. We call for the withdrawal of any support, active or tacit, for the HLPM by Indigenous Peoples anywhere in the world.

33. By consensus the above text was agreed upon and it was decided that the NAIPC will call for cancellation of the HLPM and withdraw from the Global Coordinating Group of the HLPM/WCIP. Debra Harry and Kenneth Deer, the two NAIPC representatives to the GCG will go to New York to deliver this message to a group of states on Tuesday March 4th, after which time the NAIPC formally withdraws from the GCG.

I WOULD LIKE TO BEGIN BY CONGRATULATING DALEE SAMBO DOROUGH ON HER ELECTION AS THE NEW CHAIR OF THE FORUM, AND TO THANK THE FORUM FOR GIVING ME A CHANCE TO SPEAK.

WHEN I FIRST HEARD THAT THE UNITED NATIONS WAS HOLDING A CONFERENCE UNDER THE NAME OF WORLD CONFERENCE OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES I WAS HOPEFUL. I KNEW THAT IT DEPENDED ON THE GOOD WILL OF STATES BUT I UNDERSTOOD THAT A UN CONFERENCE WAS A MAJOR EVENT— LIKE PAST UN CONFERENCES ON IMPORTANT ISSUES THAT TOOK PLACE OVER TEN-DAY PERIODS AND ATTRACTED MORE THAN 10,000 DELEGATES. THESE UN CONFERENCES PUT TOGETHER ACTION PLANS OF TWO OR THREE HUNDRED ITEMS TO ENSURE THE WORLD HEARD THEIR CALLS FOR JUSTICE.

I WAS ALSO PLEASED THAT THE ACRONYM FOR THE INDIGENOUS CONFERENCE WAS TO BE W.C.I.P.

IT WAS THE SAME ONE THAT MY FATHER’S GENERATION HAD USED IN ESTABLISHING THE GROUND-BREAKING WORLD COUNCIL OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES IN 1975. I HOPED THAT MEANT THE SAME SPIRIT OF HOPE AND INDEPENDENCE FOR OUR PEOPLES THAT WAS SIGNALLED BY THE WORLD COUNCIL WOULD BE WITH US IN THIS WORLD CONFERENCE.

BUT AS WE HAVE LEARNED MORE AND MORE ABOUT THIS CONFERENCE, WE HAVE SEEN IT IS A GREAT DISAPPOINTMENT FOR INDIGENOUS PEOPLES. IN FACT, IT IS WORSE THAN A DISAPPOINTMENT. IT IS AN INSULT TO INDIGENOUS PEOPLES.

THE WORLD CONFERENCE OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES WILL NOT BE A CONFERENCE WHERE WE ARE PLACED AT THE TOP OF THE WORLD’S AGENDA FOR A WEEK OF SERIOUS EXAMINATION OF OUR ISSUES. WHERE WE AS INDIGENOUS PEOPLES CAN PUT TOGETHER AN ACTION PLAN TO BEGIN REPAIRING THE DAMAGE OF 500 YEARS OF COLONIALISM.

NO. THIS WILL BE A HURRIED HALF-DAY, NOT REALLY A CONFERENCE AT ALL, BUT MORE A SIMPLE PLENARY SESSION, UNDER THE DIRECT CONTROL OF MANY OF THE SAME STATES WHO HAVE, AND CONTINUE TO OPPRESS OUR PEOPLES.

WHEN WE LOOK AT WHAT IS NOW BEING PROPOSED, WE SEE THAT THE REAL WORLD CONFERENCE HAS, IN A REAL SENSE, BEEN CANCELED BY THE UN AND REPLACED BY THIS OTHER THING—THE PLENARY SESSION.

INSTEAD OF A SERIOUS UN CONFERENCE, WE ARE BEING OFFERED A HURRIED GENUFLECTION AT THE ALTER OF INDIGENOUS RIGHTS, A SHORT HOMILY FROM OUR OPPRESSORS AND THEN MOVING ON, NOT ONLY WITHOUT ANY SERIOUS INITIATIVES BUT WITHOUT EVEN ANY SERIOUS DISCUSSIONS.

THIS SO-CALLED WORLD CONFERENCE OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES IS A PERPETUATION OF A REALITY THAT HAS LEFT 370 MILLION OF THE WORLD’S PEOPLES AT THE BOTTOM OF THE LADDER, WITH GENOCIDAL FORCES STILL SQUEEZING US SOCIALLY, CULTURALLY AND POLITICALLY. IN OUR DAILY FIGHT FOR SURVIVAL, INDIGENOUS PEOPLES ASK FOR A DIALOGUE WITH THE WORLD, FOR RESPECT OF OUR RIGHT TO DETERMINE OUR OWN FUTURE AND TO SAFE-GUARD OUR TRADITIONAL LANDS. THIS CONFERENCE OFFERS NONE OF THIS THINGS.

THIS FAKE WCIP IS AN INSULT TO INDIGENOUS PEOPLES. MY LATE FATHER GEORGE MANUEL WOULD BE DEEPLY OFFENDED THAT THE THIS FAKE INTERNATIONAL WORLD CONFERENCE WOULD BEAR THE ACRONYM OF THE WORLD COUNCIL OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES.

LET THE UNITED NATIONS CALL THIS SEPTEMBER MEETING WHAT IT IS—A HIGH PLENARY SESSION ON INDIGENOUS ISSUES. AND RESERVE THE NAME OF THE WORLD CONFERENCE OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES FOR A TRUE WORLD CONFERENCE THAT WE WOULD LIKE TO BUILD TOGETHER WITH THE PEOPLES OF THE WORLD: A REAL WORLD CONFERENCE DESIGNED BY INDIGENOUS PEOPLES THEMSELVES TO MEET OUR VERY REAL AND VERY URGENT NEEDS. THE SEPTEMBER MEETING IS NONE OF THESE THINGS.

Recommendation to the 13th Session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Peoples

12-23 May 2014 UN Headquarters New York

Good Governance and the Territorial Integrity of Mother Earth

In the Spirit of the Territorial Integrity of Mother Earth

Good greetings to you all:

To the ancestors and the Nations of Indigenous Peoples of these territories, to the Memory and Spirit of each of the Indigenous Peoples of Tonantzin, Our Sacred Mother Earth now in attendance, to the members of the UN Permanent Forum and all the support staff at this 13th Session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

A special greeting and congratulations to our Chairperson, Ms. Dalee Sambo Dorough and also a word of recognition for the deceased leaders and spiritual guides of our Nations of Indigenous Peoples who led the way in the struggle in the international arena for recognition, respect, and protection for the rights of Indigenous Peoples. We invoke their vision and strength once again here today, we call upon the leadership of Billy Frank, we call upon the strength of Tomas Banyacya, and all the others relatives of our Indigenous Peoples who acted upon the responsibility for our future in their times.

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Fundamental to the right of nationality, as members of the Nations of Indigenous Peoples of Abya Yala, the Great Turtle Island which is referenced in article 6 of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and evidenced unequivocally by the Treaty Status, namely international personality which was subject of the UN Treaty Study conducted by Dr. Miguel Alfonso Martinez, is the collective right of nationhood of Indigenous Peoples beyond the contextual constraints of the Westphalian system of sovereignty of states. It is a collective right, similar to how the present UN system of mutual international recognition as sovereign states provides the framework of jurisprudence for the purported jurisdiction of the states individually and then collectively at the global dimension under the dominion of the UN system, the jurisprudence which articulates the nationhood of Indigenous Peoples is also is a projection of jurisdiction at the planetary level, with mutual responsibilities towards the Territorial Integrity of Mother Earth, and the well being of the Future Generations. The distinction being that our Rights of Nationhood emerge from the COGNITION, and then thus RECOGNITION, of our responsibilities as ONE of the Nations (two legged species of kindom) – among ALL of the RELATIONS to whom and with we share as human society collectively, the responsibility to act in complementarity within the equally shared environment of the Natural World.

We are Nations of Mother Earth, and will not consent to be diminished or to be dominated under the regime of the government states of the UN system as mere ethnic groups, or minorities.

Good Governance

Colonialism and colonization are incompatible and irreconcilable to the principles and practices of good governance. With the adoption of UN GA1514 (1960), this reality became evident and standardized within the UN system by mechanisms of assessment, prosecution, and restorative justice exemplified by UN GA1541 (1960). The intent in 1960 at the dawn of the era decolonization was a determination by global society not to simply to redress the international crime of colonization, but instead to act deliberately and collectively on the mandate “to bring colonialism to a speedy end.”

That was 54 years ago. It was only seven years ago upon the adoption in 2007 of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples that the rights of Indigenous Peoples “equal to all other peoples” became a norm in the international system of the United Nations in the context of colonialism and decolonization referenced by UN GA1514.

But in terms of good governance, it is not only seven years, or 54 years or 522 years (October 12, 1492) since the pogrom of colonization inflicted upon the Nations of Indigenous Peoples became a crime against humanity. Colonialism and genocide have always been criminal acts against humanity. These dates simply mark the codification within the Westphalian system of the states now known as the United Nations when the crime of colonization became an actionable crime in international law. And again the call for action under UN GA1514 in 1960 was to “bring to a speedy end”, not simply camouflage the crime and become accomplice by dressing the body of the victim (the colonized) with a set of domesticated rights that actually diminish and would eventually destroy the Nationhood of Indigenous Peoples.

These codes of common conduct also mark the beginning of the processes of articulation and institutionalizing of mechanisms of decolonization.

One of the other international bodies which emerged in the processes was the UN Special Committee on Decolonization, where the UN system currently still monitors the situation of “non-self governing territories” in terms of the application of the principles of UNGA1514 and UNGA1541. The government of the United States of America, for example reported to this body which was established under section 73(e) of the UN Charter until 1960, informing the UN on the status of the non-self governing territories of Hawaii and Alaska. Currently, the USA reports to the UN Decolonization committee on the colonial status of American Samoa and the US Virgin Islands, while Puerto Rico is presented as an “associate free state” per UN GA1541.

Therefore, in view of the High-level Plenary Meeting of the UN in 2014 and in relation to the debate on the special theme of Good Governance of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, 2014, the Permanent Forum should address without discrimination violations of the right to self-determination and full and equal participation of Indigenous Peoples, equal to all other peoples in the concept, design, implementation and evaluation of each and every one of the UN actions and policies that involve our Indigenous Peoples and the protection of our collective rights. In particular, regional trade agreements among member states of the UN, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the imminent threat of Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP for short English) should be juridically evaluated as instruments that violate of the right of Full and Equal Participation as Peoples, equal to all other peoples.

Likewise, in evaluating with these same criteria the UNHLPM 2014, the lack of respect and consideration to be considered in Equality as Peoples with all other Peoples in the proceedings is evident from conception, completely absent from the design, not even being considered in the implementation, and there are no mechanisms integrate equality in the evaluation of the HLPM 2014 which is not a UN conference. We see individual advisors being selected by extractive and non-representational processes, international peons whose role in the projected UN High Level Plenary Meeting of States of the General Assembly, which arrogantly is to be known as World Conference on Indigenous Peoples, is to repeat what the states have scripted to be told, facilitating the assault of neo-liberal colonization by the corporations that dictate the policies of the states, and whose role is to provide legitimacy for development projects which the international financial consortia require in order to market the concept that there is justice and consent of indigenous peoples:

Colonization is inconsistent with the Good Governance.

The UN General Assembly High-level Plenary Meeting 2014

IS NOT A UN CONFERENCE.

It is a schema of the states which is actively and openly but unrealistically being promoted to be named a CONFERENCE, in the same degrading naming process that we became known as INDIANS, AMERICA, LATIN AMERICA, etc. The HLPM is a semiotic schema (doctrine) being constructed to contextualize the process INDIGENOUS CONSENT inside the Westphalian System of the Divine Right of States in order to domesticate the Universal Human Right in International Law of Indigenous Peoples, equal to all other peoples of the world.

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The Doctrine of Discovery as a Violation of the Rule of Law and the UN Decolonization Committee

As a systemic violation of the rule of law, discriminatory and racist in conception and perpetration since October 12, 1492 until the present, the Doctrine of Christian Discovery of the Americas must not and cannot be simply be redressed through advisory bodies of the UN system. Colonization must be brought to an end, not dressed up as domestic policy and repackaged for sanitized consumption under the guise of reconciliation. To do so would not invoke Good Governance. It would not be governance at all, but instead complicity in the perpetuation of the crime of colonization. The issues of colonization and genocide which are normalized socially and politically by the Doctrine must be criminally prosecuted and dismantled as violation of the rule of law, with the full effective and equal participation of the Nations of Indigenous Peoples, equal to all other peoples. The Doctrine of Discovery is a violation of the rule of law.

Madam Chair and members of the Permanent Forum:

We have taken note that the dispute over the Islas Malvinas/Falkland Islands between Great Britain and Argentina is an agenda item before the United Nations Decolonization Committee, and as we also have intervened on this matter as Nations of Indigenous Peoples of Abya Yala at the V Continental Summit held in November 2013 in the Cauca Territories [Colombia], we now submit the call for clarification presented here at the Permanent Forum to the Representative of the Holy See on this issue. In exercising our collective continental Right of Self Determination and Nationhood as Indigenous Peoples, the mechanisms of the UN bodies such as the UN Decolonizing Committee must not be complicit in legitimizing and perpetuating the Crime of Colonization by masking the issue of the Universal Call for Repudiation of the Doctrine of Discovery in their criteria and proceedings. We call for accountability and justice in this regard, in order to move forward with collective corrective actions to address the systemic discrimination against Indigenous Peoples inscribed in the Decolonization Committee mandates and procedures.

The processes and mechanisms of the UN Decolonization Committee must address the impact of the Doctrine of Discovery as a Violation of the Rule of Law, which must be prosecuted and procedurally engaged in order to realize the Full, Effective, and Equal participation of Indigenous Peoples in peaceful co-existence with (but not under) those colonial settler societies in the Americas who derive their juridical personality through the regimes of succession of the Doctrine of Discovery (1492), the Papal Bulls (1493), the Monroe Doctrine (1823), and are contextualized regionally and globally under the present UN systems such as the Organization of American States (OAS) and the Westphalian system of State Sovereignty (AKA The Divine Right of States).

Recommendation:

We call for the restitution of the primary source materials and testimony that was lent to the United Nations system as fundamental to the evidence in document form of the systemic (system to system) nature of the legal relationships between the Nations of Indigenous Peoples and the member states of the UN system for the purpose of the Treaty Study conducted by Dr. Miguel Alfonso Martinez of Cuba.

Such delivery, should be initial act of good faith in terms of the continuing process of systemic documentation among the Nations of Indigenous Peoples and the UN system prior to and as a necessary act of condition to allow for the full and effective participation of the Indigenous Peoples with the High Level Plenary Meeting on an equal basis and without systemic discrimination in the process of producing the Final Outcome Document of the High Level Plenary Meeting of the General Assembly 2014.

CONSOLIDATED INDIGENOUS PEOPLES ALTERNATIVE REPORT SUBMITTED TO THE UN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMITTEE FOR THEIR REVIEW OF THE UNITED STATES

September 13th, 2013: Today the International Indian Treaty Council (IITC) submitted a Consolidated Indigenous Peoples Alternative (“Shadow”) Report to the United Nations Human Rights Committee for their upcoming review of United States (US) compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). 28 Indigenous Nations, Tribes, Treaty Councils, organizations, Community groups and Traditional Cultural Societies were co-submitters and/or made contributions to the report. Based on specific questions directed to the US by the Committee, the co-submitters addressed the ongoing lack of protection by the US for Indigenous Peoples’ Sacred Areas, religious and cultural practices, and its failure to implement the right to Free Prior and Informed Consent.

The ICCPR is a multilateral legally binding Human Rights Treaty adopted by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly on December 16, 1966. The US is one of 167 “State parties” which have ratified the Covenant. All State parties are required to undergo periodic reviews by the Human Rights Committee assessing their compliance with the Covenant, usually every 4 – 6 years. The US will be reviewed by the Committee in Geneva on October 17th and 18th, 2013 during its 109th session.

The Indigenous co-submitters are calling on the Committee to hold the US accountable for its ongoing human rights violations including the desecration of Indigenous Peoples’ sacred places. Petuuche Gilbert, representing the Indigenous World Association and Laguna Acoma Coalition for a Safe Environment, explained that “most Indigenous lands and sacred areas, like Mt. Taylor, have been declared to be ‘public’ land by the United States, so it is up to the federal government to fulfill their human rights commitments and protect these areas held sacred by Indigenous Peoples, including preventing their destruction from activities such as uranium mining.”

Spiritual Leader and IITC Board member Radley Davis, representing Pit River Nation and Advocates for the Protection of Sacred Sites, affirmed the importance of this submission: “The UN world bodies are vital to Pit River Nation and all other Indigenous Peoples regarding the protections of their sacred places because the US, in its short span of life, has allowed activities that desecrate sacred areas like Medicine Lake which are of the greatest spiritual significance for us. We call upon the UN Human Rights Committee to hold the US accountable for the human rights that they have agreed to uphold.”

The Consolidated Indigenous Peoples’ Alternative Report will be posted in its entirety, along with the US country report, other Alternative Reports and Committee’s Concluding Observations regarding the US on the Human Rights Committee web site: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrc/.

The Indigenous Peoples’ Report is also available on IITC’s web site, www.treatycouncil.org.

Earth Peoples Co-Founder Petuuche Gilbert made a statement regarding ACCESS TO JUSTICE, Agenda Item 5. at the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in Geneva.

Earth Peoples Co-Founder Petuuche Gilbert at EMRIP

I am Petuuche Gilbert of Haakuu, Acoma, our home being in occupied America. I am delivering this statement under the auspices of Indigenous World Association, an ECOSOC NGO.

First, bear with my eye sight disability. I am glad to see that the United Nations is taking positive measures to allow for the participation of disabled people. We all need patience and understanding and that is the kind of respect and positive progress we can and must be making together.

For indigenous peoples in the United States essentially there is no access to justice. Under democratic rule it is not where we are prohibited from pursuing our day in court it is we can not win within the existing system of law. Under current framework we are constrained to use national procedures in the pursuit of justice. The rule of law and policy is such that indigenous peoples cannot regain their inherent right of sovereignty and self-determination. Consider that we are called Native Americans and proclaimed to be citizens of the United States, not by our choosing.

United States courts have relied on the twin pillars of conquest and discovery to define us as discovered and conquered peoples. From the 1830s Supreme Court decisions we have been treated as dependent indigenous nations. Our rights as Indian people has been determined to treatment as wards of the government and a whole federal trusteeship relationship has been creatively established. In essence we do not have sole title to our lands, territories and natural resources. The U.S. government rules us and we are in a sense prisoners of American democracy. A whole body of law and policy described in Title 25 United States Code Annotated and Title 25 Code of Federal Regulations dictate our rights to land, territories and natural resources. The courts have even ruled our Native American rights as Indian people can be removed by the plenary power of Congress. Thus, in essence, under the court decisions of the United States we can have no justice when it comes to being sovereign and truly self-determining. Witness what occurred in American history when treaties have been broken, when Indian land rights were taken away by the Dawes Indian Allotment Act of 1872. U.S. citizenship was forced upon indigenous people within the United States during 1924. Then came the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 which induced many tribal governments to model American style of governance. These are only a few examples in American history how systematically laws and policies were meant to define and limit indigenous peoples rights.

Domestic rule defining Native American lives continued to be asserted to current times. One federal action which is popular with the federal government as a model of allowing federal assistance to Indian tribes is the 1972 Indian Self-determination Act which is used to manage federal Indian programs by tribes themselves. Other actions are taken by the President through Executive Orders. President Obama recent establishment of the White House Council on Native American Affairs essentially reinforces the U. S.’ principle of domination. They insist we must only have internal self-determination, which is their attempt to limit the application of UNDRIP to national law so as not to allow true sovereignty and real self-determination for indigenous peoples. These federal actions are done and taken to operate and maintain the federal Indian system of law and policy. It is the Great White Father in Washington, DC, doing what is best for his children. Even now there is certainly no real free, prior and informed consent. This is a vivid example of continuing colonial domination.

Today we ourselves participate in this domination. We are acculturated to live within this system of majority rule. We are expected to be good citizens, vote and, thus, participate in our demise as being truly self-determining. It is now being framed as participatory democracy. Indigenous peoples subjugated to the rule of law and national policy. This is continuing colonial domination and not neo-colonialism.

We are relegated to use and play by legal and political game rules established to rule us. We can try to win in the state and federal courts but only under domestic domain. But, when federal Indian law is applied we are the losers when it comes to permanent sovereignty over lands, territories and natural resources. The U.S. courts will rule we do not have self-determination as peoples under international law. These courts rely upon precedent court cases to limit and define us, our lives, our land rights, and our human rights. Thus, under these set of rules and policies we cannot achieve the justice we deserve.

What must be done for indigenous peoples to gain their due justice?

As in the words of Lenin–what needs to be done. Professor Montclure Montose said at a Yale sovereignty conference. Law is the problem. Greg Cajete, University of New Mexico professor, went on to add. Education is the problem. Systematic changes must occur (T. Ware’s recommendation to EMRIP). The rights of indigenous peoples have been recognized by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) but they must go beyond being considered as aspirational and they must be implemented. Scholarly contributions are being contributed by the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It was quite an achievement to open and present discussions on the doctrine of discovery at the Permanent Forum. The studies and recommendations offered by the Permanent Forum, the Special Rapporteur on Indigenous Peoples, and the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, must all be addressed. The High Level Plenary meeting can be another important step forward, and we, urge it lead toward a World Conference on Indigenous Peoples because the issues of colonization and decolonization must be confronted.

Progress is being made, albeit so slowly, in respecting and achieving the rights of indigenous peoples. It is our challenge and our desire to live in peace and respect but we cannot do until we are truly accepted as peoples within the meaning of indigenous nations with the right of sovereignty and self-determination.